Brazil in crisis as impeachment fight speeds up

BRASILIA, Brazil – The fight to oust Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff speeded up on Monday, April 18, after lawmakers authorized impeachment proceedings against her, deepening the country’s political crisis.

Enemies of the 68-year-old leftist leader said they would rush to the Senate to launch an impeachment trial, after lower house lawmakers voted overwhelmingly Sunday against her.

As demonstrators on both sides massed noisily in the streets, Rousseff’s supporters denounced the vote as an attack on Brazil’s democracy just three decades after it emerged from a military dictatorship.

“Impeachment!” screamed the front-page headline of the Folha de Sao Paulo on Monday.

“Close to the end,” said another leading paper, O Globo, adding: “Dilma Rousseff yesterday started to say goodbye to the presidency of Brazil.”

In a 10-hour vote on Sunday, 367 of the 513 deputies in the lower house of Congress backed impeachment – well over the two thirds majority needed to move the case forward.

Cheering and confetti burst from opposition ranks at the 342nd vote, countered by jeering from Rousseff allies – a snapshot of the divisive mood consuming Brazil just four months before Rio de Janeiro hosts the Olympics.

“It was a coup against democracy,” said Rousseff’s attorney general, Jose Eduardo Cardozo.

He said Rousseff would make her first public reaction on Monday.

She is accused of illegally manipulating budget figures but her supporters say there is no evidence and the impeachment drive amounts to a “coup.”

The case now passes to the upper house which is expected to vote in May on whether to open an impeachment trial.

Eduardo Cunha, the lower house speaker who engineered the successful impeachment vote, said Rousseff’s days as president were numbered.

“Now Brazil needs to climb out of the bottom of the well and we have to resolve the situation as quickly as possible,” he said. “The Senate should move rapidly.”

Cheers and tears

There was expected to be a euphoric reaction on Monday from the financial markets. They have been betting heavily on Rousseff’s exit and the advent of a more business-friendly government to kickstart Brazil’s economy.

Outside Congress, where tens of thousands of people were watching the vote on giant screens, the split was echoed on a mass scale — with opposition supporters partying and Rousseff loyalists in despair.

“I am happy, happy, happy. I spent a year demonstrating in hope that Dilma would be brought down,” said retiree Maristela de Melo, 63.

But Mariana Santos, 23, burst into tears, saying the vote was “a disgrace for our country.”

Several thousand police stood by and the rival camps were separated by a long metal wall.

Thousands also rallied in Rio and Sao Paulo.

If, as many expect, the Senate goes on to impeach the leftist president, Vice President Michel Temer – who abandoned Rousseff to become a key opponent – will assume power.

Monday’s newspapers printed pictures of him smiling as he watched the vote.

But the celebrations could be short lived, analysts say.

Temer would inherit a country wallowing in its deepest recession in decades and a dysfunctional political scene where Rousseff’s Workers’ Party vows revenge.

“It will not be easy” for Temer, said Andre Cesar, an independent political analyst. “It will be a nightmare.”

Street fighting woman

Rousseff, 68, is accused of illegal accounting maneuvers to mask government shortfalls during her 2014 reelection.

Many Brazilians also hold her responsible for the recession and a corruption scandal centered on state oil company Petrobras.

Experts consider it almost certain the Senate will vote to launch a trial, since its political makeup reflects that of the lower house.

If that happened, Rousseff would step down for up to 180 days while the trial got under way.

If the Senate then voted by a two-thirds majority for impeachment, Rousseff would be ousted. Temer would stay on until elections in 2018.

But a senior Rousseff ally said there would be no surrender.

“The coup plotters have won here in the house,” said Jose Guimaraes, leader of the Workers’ Party in the lower house of Congress.

The government “recognizes this temporary defeat but that does not mean that the war is over,” Guimaraes said.

“The fight will continue in the streets and in the Senate.”

Cardozo described Rousseff, who was imprisoned and tortured under military rule in the 1970s, as “very strong” and able “to fight a good fight.”

Huge opposition rallies over recent months have played a big role in turning pressure against Rousseff into an unstoppable avalanche.

Anger on the streets could again play a role as the crisis enters ever higher stakes.

Sylvio Costa, who heads the specialist politics website Congresso en Foco, told AFP that Brazil’s troubles are only starting.

“Whoever loses will keep protesting in the streets,” he said. “What’s certain is that the crisis will not end today.” – Laurent Thomet and Damian Wroclavsky, AFP/Rappler.com